The Firefly and the Snake
by glassesforjimmy
Summary: Every tragedy has an author. And those who wish to stop the tragedy have to find the strength to rewrite history for themselves. Join the next generation of Konoha ninja as they struggle to live, love, and grow in a world shaped by the rise of Orochimaru.


**Author's Disclaimer** – I do not own Naruto. I do, however, own Tenten. Or at least I wish I did. Since it appears that Masashi Kishimoto has prior claim to the entire Narutoverse, I'm left writing fanfiction.

**More Disclaimer – **This story is rated 'M' for foul language, suggestive themes, excessive exposition of the things which the suggestive themes suggest, blood and violence, the mutilation of small forest creatures, mind-numbing angst, graphic portrayal of people drinking coffee, consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and the random foul odor which shall emit itself from your computer screen as you read this. Please shield your five senses as you see fit.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Flight of the Firefly_

* * *

3 a.m. 

The streets were dark in this section of Konoha. The only light in the district came from a lone lamppost on a barren corner of the street and a rat poked her nose out of a crack in the brickwork of one of the buildings, sniffing the air pensively. It was time to scavenge for food – she had young to feed and they were counting on her.

The rat crept out of her nest and skittered across the street, avoiding the dull halo of the streetlamp as she crossed over to a dumpster near the corner of an alley. She crawled up the side of the dumpster and perched on the edge, imagining what she might find inside and thinking about the litter of children waiting back in her nest. Tonight would be good, she thought as she moved slowly around the edge of the dumpster; she could smell food and there was enough to feed them for a week, if she could get it all back.

Suddenly her whiskers picked up a disturbance and she looked around, alert. Her whiskers twitched again, picking up subtle changes in the current of air flowing down the alleyway. Every inch of fur on her body bristled. Something was wrong. Something was…

**Schhhhthok!**

The rat screeched as the full weight of a kunai impaled her through the midsection. It had been thrown with enough velocity that it carried her off of the edge of the dumpster and through the air before it pinned her to a loose pallet of wood. She struggled against the kunai, squeaking desperately, trying to make it back to the safety of her nest and the soft noises of her children. After a moment, though, her movements began to grow sluggish and her eyes began to cloud over.

"Damn rat," a voice said and a hand picked up the kunai, scraping the rat off on the edge of the dumpster that she had been foraging in just a minute ago. The rat twisted and fought for another moment, squeaking, before she finally lay still and died amidst the refuse.

Hatake Suzume pulled a rag out of her pocket and used it to wipe the blood off of her kunai. She had never liked rats. After she was done she put the kunai back in the holster at the side of her hip and hugged her arms close, shivering. It was late in the year and her breath came out in thick plumes of mist. She looked around the street for the wall she'd been searching for; the quicker she found it the quicker she could go home and curl up under her blankets. She reached into the waist pocket of her jacket and pulled out a spray can. It was red. Good color for what she had in mind.

A cold gust of wind chased its way up the alley, carrying with it a cloud of dust and loose papers. Suzume covered her head with the hood of her jacket and moved on. She could smell rain coming, and she wanted to get back to sleep. She had woken at two in the morning, fresh from a dream, and part of it had lingered in her head for a full hour, keeping her from getting back to sleep. In frustration she had gotten dressed and grabbed a loose can of spray paint, figuring that the only way to get rid of it was to write it down; paper hadn't worked, so here she was. After a few minutes of looking around, she arrived at the wall she was looking for. She pulled out the spray can and began working. The motions came smoothly, uninhibited by thought. It was almost as if someone else was doing the writing.

The "wall" she'd picked was the side of an old shop that had gone out of business over two decades ago. She'd been in here once, years ago. Daigo had discovered it and dared her to explore it with him. They had wandered the empty aisles and searched the back storage room – little children at play in a neighborhood far too dangerous for them. There were ghosts and old, violent memories here, walking the empty aisles of the store and sleeping in the brickwork, and she had been unsurprised when she discovered faded bloodstains behind the counter and the telltale markings of violence carved into the floorboards.

She stepped back and admired her handiwork. With luck, the paint would dry fast and wouldn't be marred by the storm. Konoha had blocked off this area of the city long before it had abandoned the rest of the outlying sectors of the village, so there was no fear that her mark would be removed by the village maintenance crews. Her tribute to the sector was completed, for tonight, and she put the spray can back in her jacket and turned around to go home before the rains caught her on the streets alone. As she walked away she looked over her shoulder to examine it one last time, and then the lamplight flickered and she caught a glimpse of something else on the wall. There was a faded family symbol painted on the wall. It must have been almost as old as the village itself; it was dulled and eroded by the weather and Suzume wasn't surprised that she hadn't noticed it. Her graffiti had gone on top of it and stood out brightly above the faded white and red of the Uchiha family crest.

Every tragedy has an author.

Well, that couldn't have worked out better if she'd planned it.

The lamplight flickered and then faded, having exhausted itself. The only light in the street now came from the few slivers of moonlight that had managed to break through the gathering rain clouds. Suzume shivered again, then turned and left the alley for the comfort of her home and her bed. Behind her, the exhausted lamp made a colossal effort and managed to flicker one last time before the bulb exploded in a shower of sparks and it died completely.

* * *

The two figures faced each other from opposite sides of the lake. They stood atop the water, using slow streams of their chakra to stay above the surface. All around them the fireflies danced, bathing the two in soft flames. Here in the light of the fireflies they were nothing more than silhouettes - empty shadows of human beings suspended above the placid surface of the lake. Here they were ghosts. There was no better place for this to end. 

The shadow on the far end of the lake was large and well built. He was also the better ninja and Keika, bloody and bruised, had no idea how she'd managed to evade him for so long. He had to have been toying with her. The water that he was standing on rippled slowly and evenly, a clear sign that he had mastered the technique ages ago. Keika gritted her teeth. He must have been toying with her. He had so much chakra left that she could feel it radiating off of him in waves even from her end of the lake. He could have ended it anytime he wanted to, but he chose not to. He had waited to see when she would choose to make her final stand, because he wanted his victory over her to be complete and unquestionable. He wanted her to know she'd lost even when she had given everything. He liked it that way.

The water under Keika's own feet rippled violently and with no discernable rhythm. Every so often one of her feet would slip and begin sinking into the lake until she noticed and forced herself to regain her balance. She had yet to master the technique - another reminder of her inferiority as a ninja. Still, it didn't matter to her anymore; didn't matter that he was better than her, that he had been toying with her, or that she was a failure. She had gotten him to the lake – to the fireflies – and this was the only place that she had a chance. With her chakra as low as it was she knew she could pull this off without her pursuer noticing anything out of the ordinary. Her hand moved to her stomach. To the other it must have looked like a sign of weakness - like she was clutching the wound that he had put there earlier – because he began to stride forward across the lake, closing the gap between them. He didn't notice the faint pulse of chakra. At least, she hoped he didn't.

"You always were a weakling, Keika," the man said as he walked. A firefly passed in front of his face and flickered. The light hit his features at a disturbing angle and for a moment he looked like one of the Oni that her brother had always told her about in his midnight ghost stories. The man's face parted into a sadistic smile. Keika wasn't stupid; she knew what he was planning, and that he had permission to "break" her before he finished with her. She could see it in the way he grinned. The firefly buzzed in front of his face a moment too long and the man's hand shot up and plucked it out of the air, too quick for her eyes to follow. The firefly flickered again, illuminating the lone musical note engraved into the man's forehead protector before he crushed the bug between his fingers.

"Look at you," he continued, gesturing at the water she was standing on. "You never were able to keep yourself above the water for long, were you? And to think that I tried so hard to teach you." He mused.

"Everything I know I learned from Hotaru, Sado-_sensei,_" she spat. "You never taught me a thing." She paused for a moment before saying the next bit. "You were waiting for this."

"Mmm… so you noticed." Sado replied. "Well, you're right. I do like them weak. Still, even if that weren't the case I had orders. Orochimaru wanted me to leave you behind in favor of the others. He rewards talent, you know." He sounded amused.

"And pedophiles," Keika retorted. Sado's grin disappeared, and before Keika realized her mistake he was in front of her. He grabbed her by her throat, lifting her off of the lake surface and holding her above him. She struggled against his grip and brought her hands to her neck, trying to pry his fingers loose so she could breathe.

"Maybe you're right," He hissed. His voice was an icy rasp. "But even I would never put a kunai in the throat of my own brother." His mark hit home he smiled to himself as he watched her start to cry. He loosened his grip just enough so he could hear her sob as she struggled against him. Another firefly flew between them and its flickering light reflected off the tears as they ran down her face. He considered his options and decided this was as good a time as any for him to test the girl.

"I'm going to let you in on a secret, Keika," he said, bringing her in close so they were face to face. Her struggling slowed as they locked eyes. "Every one of you, from your glorious brother Kaen to the most pathetic of your siblings, was made for a purpose. Your brother Hotaru was Orochimaru's chosen vessel, bred to replace the flawed one that you're so convinced is your father." He revealed. His voice was silky now, and she could tell he was taking pleasure in this. He paused for a moment before revealing the next part. "You, Keika, were raised to die at Hotaru's hands. Not the other way around. And now, because you've interfered in Orochimaru's plans, I've been ordered to rape and kill you, just like I did with your pathetic mother."

Keika screamed and kicked him hard in the stomach. Sado wasn't expecting it and dropped her; she vanished under the surface of the lake. He stood up and clutched his stomach, listening and waiting for her to reappear as he regained his breath. It didn't bother him that she'd gotten away – the odds were still stacked against her and she was far too weak and infuriated to turn the situation to her advantage. All that remained now was to wait until she resurfaced so he could see if his plan had worked. It was possible that even if Kabuto couldn't save the girl's brother they could still salvage Orochimaru's ambitions.

After a moment Keika swam to the surface. She used her hands to gain purchase on the top of the water and crawled out slowly, manipulating her chakra one limb at a time to keep herself from sinking again. Sado was impressed; if she had gotten that far with just a few stray lessons from her brother then perhaps she was more talented than he'd thought. Now all that was left was to see if she had _it_. He watched as she regained her footing and then brushed the wet hair away from her face. It was dark, but in the firefly light he could make out a subtle shift in her eyes – the shape of the pupils, the color of her irises.

_(Sharingan)_

So she had the gift after all… Orochimaru would want her alive, now. He watched her shaking with rage and decided that it was time for him to begin. This was going to be the most fun he'd had in five years.

Keika glared at him as he removed a kunai from his waist holster and slid into a combat stance. She knew her eyes had changed like her siblings. The night was clearer now and she could predict the meandering path of every firefly on the lake; each one looked as if it were following a trail of faint light. The rage inside of her slowly iced over and she forced herself to remember her plan. She slid her tongue to a spot between her teeth and upper lip and felt a reassuring buzz there. She figured that Sado's orders had changed along with her eyes, but she _knew_ that his other plans hadn't. She could use his lust to her advantage. She planned to end it here and she needed every advantage she could get. In one quick movement she snatched a kunai from her belt and charged the waiting form of her sensei, moving like a whisper over the surface of the water.

All around them the fireflies continued their dance as the two silhouettes clashed; a symphony of light illuminating the rising crescendo of metal striking metal. The battle edged toward the shore and the curtain of fireflies parted for the combatants. Only one silhouette would leave the lake tonight. The other would belong to the fireflies forever, and they flickered in anticipation.

* * *

"Medic!" 

Sakura sat bolt upright in her chair, knocking over a cup of cold coffee that she had left on top of the pile of papers cluttering her desk. Had she been asleep? She looked at the clock; she had been asleep for over two hours.

"Shit." She cursed. She looked at her desk and saw the coffee seeping into the stack of reports that she'd been working on. "Shit!" she cursed even louder, snatching the cup from the desk and depositing it in the trash. She looked around for napkins, then settled on using a spare rag that she'd stolen from one of the operating rooms. Dammit; this was going to ruin the…

"Medic! Somebody, get one of the doctors!"

Several pairs of footsteps ran by her door, accompanied by the roll of a hospital gurney. She recognized the voice as one of the interns. She threw the rag into the trash and then slid out of her chair. The voice was urgent, which didn't mean good news for her. She stepped out of the door and was nearly bowled over by one of the medical staff, Ichigo Mesu.

"Haruno-sensei! We need you in emergency room two, fast. Shiranai-sama just brought in a red-block patient." Mesu informed her. He looked out of breath. Had he run here all the way from the other side of the hospital? It didn't matter – he was her student and one of the better doctors she had on staff. It was good that he'd come.

"How many other med-nin are on duty right now?" She asked.

"You're the only one working the skeleton shift who can handle a red-block patient right now, Sakura-sama." He answered. "Kurenme and I aren't good enough to handle somebody damaged this bad, and everybody else is either too inexperienced or gone."

Sakura groaned and the voice in her head sprung to life, complaining about her lack of sleep. She really didn't want to have to deal with a patient right now.

"Hinata?"

"She's on a diplomatic mission to Wave country."

Double shit. The voice was banging against the walls of her cranium and cussing up a storm. And she hadn't had coffee for at least two hours.

"What about Shizune?"

"We're trying to reach her right now."

"Keep trying. Send Amime, if you have to – she knows where Shizune lives." Sakura demanded. The last time Mesu had heard her use this tone of voice she'd hit an intern so hard he flew through two walls and landed in the emergency ward for treatment. "I don't care if Amime catches her naked and singing Karaoke with Iruka! I need her here now!" she yelled and then stalked off in the direction emergency room two while Mesu instructed one of the staff to find and inform Amime. As she walked by the lobby she noticed a jounin talking to one of the guards stationed at the entrance. It was Shiranai. He looked at her and Sakura saw that he was covered in blood; his long hair was matted with it and it glistened on his dark shirt. It wasn't his own, either.

She bludgeoned her way through the ER door, cursing under her breath. Over 70 of the hospital staff was out tonight – some holiday that she'd been too busy to remember the name of. She hadn't celebrated a holiday in years. Kurenme was already inside the room, prepping the patient for emergency surgery, cutting away the cloth around the wounds. A flash caught Sakura's eye and she turned her head to look at it. It was a forehead protector with a lone musical note engraved on it. A sound-nin. That made things even worse – she had no desire to save an enemy nin that Shiranai had brutalized just so those bastards in interrogation could shred them to pieces again.

She looked over at the table and her thoughts were interrupted. The patient looked…smaller. Smaller than a normal nin. A child? She washed her hands quickly and snapped on a pair of latex gloves, never taking her eyes off the prone form on the operating table. Shiranai-san wouldn't have carved up a child like that, would he?

Sakura moved towards the table and began a quick assessment of the patient. She was young, perhaps 12; black hair, skin pale from blood loss. Something about the girl—the soft slant of her jaw line, the set of her lips, the way her nose turned up at the tip—disturbed Sakura. Her entire upper body was one massive bruise, and her face wasn't in good condition either. A quick probe of her head told Sakura that the girl had a concussion. There were lacerations all over her arms and legs and several major arteries had been cut. It didn't look like Shiranai had put any of the wounds there. Rather, he had done a good job of patching most of them up. She almost smiled—he had always been one of her best students. Pity he had dropped out of the med-nin program.

The girl's leg was badly burned from a fire jutsu and there was a line of shuriken wounds on her back that had missed her spine by an inch. The most serious wound went straight through her stomach. It looked like somebody had gored her with a naginata. Equally dangerous was the deep kunai wound above her right lung, just below the collarbone. It wasn't fatal – whoever had placed it was very precise, because it missed all the major arteries while rendering her arm useless – but it looked several days older than her other wounds and needed to be dealt with before an infection set in. The door behind her opened and Mesu rushed in, cleaning his hands and preparing for surgery.

"Kurenme," Sakura said absentmindedly – all her focus was on the girl in front of her. "I need a needle, stitches, forceps and vein clamps right now. We need to take care of the stomach wound and do some preliminary healing so we can stabilize her for a full medical sealing." She focused her chakra into her hand and created a scalpel, which she used to re-open the crude stitches that Shiranai had used to close up the girl's stomach. Just like she thought – the naginata had gone straight through. He'd stitched up both sides but probably didn't have enough chakra to do anything but patch up the wound. She channeled her chakra to her fingers and began healing the injury cautiously, aware that even the slightest slip up in control could not only reopen it but might also cause serious damage. The human body was a vastly complex system and the sort of healing that Sakura was trying – far more complete than a standard field treatment which simply accelerated the body's natural healing – required intense chakra control, first to reconnect the tissue and hold it in place and second to cause regeneration at the cellular level. Kurenme brought her a tray containing the tools she had requested and more. She would use them to realign some of the major severed arteries in the patient's midsection so she could reconnect them with medical jutsu. Mesu had busied himself attaching the patient to a set of machines so they could monitor the girl's heart rate, breathing, and chakra circulation.

Chakra… the girl's chakra pulsed and flowed around Sakura's hand as she healed the girl's internal injuries. Sakura could feel a faint tingling as the girl's chakra connected and mingled with her own. The tingling turned into an angry hum and suddenly a bolt of raw physical emotion – a sort of panic and visceral angst generated by the girl's own chakra– arced up her arm and into her own body. Sakura gritted her teeth; this happened every time she worked on a gut wound. Chakra ran thickest in the mid-torso and it usually reacted violently to intrusions when it was trying to heal a serious injury, even if the intruder was trying to help. It was like trying to set the broken leg of a frightened, struggling dog.

Suddenly the chakra coursing up Sakura's arm stopped. That wasn't a good sign. Sakura looked at the chakra monitor, which had gone dangerously low. It faltered and looked like it was going to—

**Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!**

The chakra monitor flatlined, along with the heart and respiratory monitors.

"Shit!" Sakura yelled, clenching her free hand into a fist. "Mesu, get a chakra line out here, now. Kurenme, get your ass around here and start feeding her your chakra. No! Not there! Her heart, dammit! She's gone into chakra overburn and it's causing a full arrest. Do it now, dammit!"

Sakura put her hands on the girl's solar plexus and began CPR. One! Two! Three! – every time she pressed her hands down she shot a pulse of chakra out of her palms and directly into the girl's heart, trying to jump-start it. She plugged the girl's nose and breathed into her mouth.

"Mesu, get that chakra line attached and then bring a breather!" One, two, three! Breathe. One, two, three! Breathe, dammit! It wasn't working.

"Sakura-sama!"

"What, Kurenme?"

"The chakra I'm giving her is burning too fast. Something in her body is consuming it at an abnormal rate."

"Then find it and stop it! We're not going to let a child die on this table!" Sakura yelled. She continued the CPR but the girl's prone form didn't respond.

Sakura paused in her efforts for a fraction of a second to reconsider what she was doing. CPR wasn't working – the girl's body didn't have enough chakra to regulate her pulse and breathing, and Kurenme's chakra wasn't helping because it was foreign and burned off too fast.

Foreign… Foreign! Sakura had an idea. She shoved her hand into the girl's stomach wound. No good – the glove was blocking her ability to sense the girl's chakra. She ripped the glove off of her hand and threw it to the side, then placed her fingers inside the girl's stomach again, trying to feel the small bit of chakra remaining there. Where was it? She knew there had to be some left…right?

There. She found it! She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of the girl's chakra buzzing on her fingertips, then gathered her own chakra into her lungs in as large an amount as she could handle. She drew in a breath and held it there as she focused on the two separate chakra signatures, and then bent all her will towards synchronizing the two. If the girl's body wouldn't respond to foreign chakra then she'd trick it into thinking the chakra was it's own. She clenched her jaw and a bead of sweat ran down her cheek. Shit, it had been ages since she tried to control her chakra with this precision. It was one thing to mold chakra; it was another entirely to alter the fundamental fluctuations of the chakra itself. It was like trying to tune two guitar strings to the exact same note, except a hundred times more demanding and she didn't have the luxury of time.

Focus…. Come on, Sakura… Focus! Do this or she dies! Focus…. There!

She felt the two signatures fluctuating in perfect sync and acted immediately. She pulled her hand out of the girl's stomach and placed both hands on her chest for one last burst of CPR. This had to work.

One, two, three…

Breathe! She plugged the girl's nose and locked lips with her, forcing her breath and all of her accumulated, synchronized chakra directly into the girl's lungs. The girl convulsed under Sakura's hold, shaking the operating table as her body was fed a stream of pure chakra that was almost identical to her own. Her back arched, her eyes shot open and she took in a violent breath. Sakura, inches away from the girl's face, found herself staring into the girl's eyes. They were

_(sharingan) _

_Two figures stand at the edge of the lake, still as scarecrows. The waterfall behind them is tainted scarlet with the reflected light of the sunset and Sakura squints her eyes against the glare, trying to discern between the two. She can't; they're too much alike, which is probably why she loved them both. A gust of wind rolls past the lake, carryng a lone leaf, and suddenly they're moving. Now they're running, now they're sprinting, now one man screams a battle cry and draws a katana from the sheath strapped to his side. The other vomits forth a sword of his own and when the two men meet in the center they clash. Sakura can't think of any other word to describe it; they clash like the dark gods of sunset and twilight, ageless and eldritch, invoked only in dreams and prophecies. The landscape buckles and the atmosphere screams under the combined weight of their energies and a maelstrom of heated wind erupts from the center of their conflict, tearing up dirt and reeds and sending the water fleeing from the shores of the lake._

_Sakura coughs up blood and her vision begins fogging over but she refuses to close her eyes. The men in front of her have ripped, clawed, and torn their way so far beyond their limits that they have ceased being men and become forces of nature. They deserve to bee seen, even if the vision will haunt her forever. And so she watches, committing every second, every detail and strike of the battle to her memory, because she owes it to them to remember everything._

_The end is what she remembers most. It's anticlimactic; there is no explosion, no culmination of force or energy that signifies the climax of the fight. There is only the sound of two thousand chirping birds as the two men meet, fists ablaze with lightning, and in the final tangle of limbs one man's hand pierces the other's heart and the battle is over. Sakura can't tell who won, even as the fires of the two chidori fade and the victor shakes and twists his arm out of the hole in the loser's chest. And then the winner looks down at the corpse below him and begins to laugh._

_It is not the voice she wants to hear._

_The victor begins laughing and in that laugh she can hear pain and hatred and the bitter overtones of insanity. There are demons in the laugh, legions of them, and they roar along with their host. Sakura can only listen as her soul splinters under the weight of her loss and then the victor looks up from the corpse on the ground and gazes at her. Even from the valley she can see his eyes, insane and lit from within with the crimson light of the_

_(sharingan)_

_and when she sees his eyes shining like the pits of hell she begins to scream. Sakura screams and screams and screams and screams and_

Sakura screamed and flew backwards from the operating table, slamming her back against the wall of the emergency room and clutching at her head as if something were trying to claw its way out of her skull. She screamed and screamed and as Mesu and Kurenme stared in shock she backed into a corner of the room, knocking over a tray of surgical tools with her hand. She curled into fetal position in the corner of the room, trying to make herself as small as possible, unaware of the deep gash on her hand where it had been cut by a scalpel from the tray. Mesu and Kurenme were speechless – they had just witnessed a medical miracle followed by the complete nervous breakdown of the one who'd made it happen. Their hesitation only lasted a fraction of a second before they split ways – Mesu to examine the girl and Kurenme to tend to Sakura, who was still screaming.

Mesu tried to figure out what the girl had done that affected Sakura so violently. She was still thrashing on the table and he tried to examine her while keeping her from falling off. One of her seizures brought her to a sitting position and Mesu caught a glimpse of her eyes, bright red and glazed over as if she were possessed. It was a doujutsu! He reached around the back of the girl's head and pressed one of his fingers to a spot on her neck, sending a small burst of chakra into her spine just below the second vertebrae. She convulsed one last time and then the pupils in each of her widened eyes began to dilate and fuse back into one. Her irises faded from red to a deep brown as the doujutsu deactivated and the chakra monitor, which had gone from completely flat to wildly active after Sakura's successful chakra transfer, stabilized. Her body, rigid just a moment ago, seemed to melt and she collapsed back on the operating table. After a moment her heart and respiratory signals stabilized as well. The chakra drain had disappeared with the doujutsu and the girl was okay, for the moment.

Mesu let out a sigh of relief and then turned to look at Sakura again. She was huddled in a corner of the room, arms held protectively around her head. She was muttering something incoherent to herself and every time Kurenme tried to put a hand on her shoulder she cringed like an abused child. Kurenme held a rag and was trying to clean the cut on Sakura's hand but she couldn't. The red blood traced trails down Sakura's pink hair and soaked into the shoulder of her doctor's uniform.

"Is she going to be okay?" Mesu asked.

"I'm not sure," Kurenme replied. "I've never seen her like this before."

"Was it the doujutsu, do you think?"

"No. She's not showing any signs of being affected by a jutsu."

"Then what…?"

"It doesn't matter," Kurenme cur him off. She stood up. "Right now we need to get the girl completely stable so we can prepare her for a full scale medical sealing."

"Right," Mesu said. He turned his attention to the girl. "Kurenme. Take Sakura sensei outside. We'll have to do this without her." Inside, his stomach turned at the thought of having to heal the girl without Sakura taking point. Repairing damage this bad required control so precise that it bordered on pure art. He wasn't sure if he could manage it like Sakura did.

"Can we handle it?" Kurenme asked him. She was helping Sakura stand up. Sakura had gone completely silent and her eyes were glazed over.

"I don't know," he said. "But we can hold out until Shizune gets here, at least."

He examined the girl's face as Kurenme led Sakura out of the operating room. It was peaceful and he could tell that beneath the bruises and cuts the girl was pretty. Then he looked at the forehead protector lying on the floor next to the girl's empty pack. The musical note on it stared back at him passively.

"What the hell just happened?" He asked himself. He ran a hand through his hair and then busied himself repairing the wound in the girl's stomach.

* * *

Shizune arrived fifteen minutes later, trailed by a skittish looking Suguri Amime. Sakura had retreated to her office and Kurenme had stepped out of the operating room for a brief moment to calm down. Her knees were shaking and Shizune found herself wondering what happened that had triggered such a reaction in her. 

Mesu had shown his talent in the preliminary surgery; fifteen minutes and he had managed, with Kurenme's assistance, to use an ingenious chakra manipulation technique to re-route the girl's blood flow away from her stomach. The girl's seizures had reopened the wound and she had come dangerously close to dying on the table again. Mesu had bought the girl another hour, at least, and after she had stabilized he told Kurenme to take a minute to breathe; she was shaking too much to be any real help and for the time being he needed her to calm down more than he needed her present at the operating table. When Kurenme saw Amime arrive she had breathed a sigh of relief; now that Shizune was here, they could begin the real treatment.

"Where's Sakura?" Shizune demanded. She was irate; Kurenme figured that Amime must have barged in on her at a bad time. She rubbed her temples gently as she spoke to her superior, trying to prevent both a headache and a panic attack at the same time.

"Sakura-sama had to be led out of the operating room. The girl did something to her."

"What do you mean?" Shizune snapped.

"It was a doujutsu, we think. Well, we know, actually. The girl has a doujutsu, that is." Kurenme was getting even more flustered under Shizune's glare. Shizune sensed her discomfort and relaxed a bit. It wouldn't do to put Kurenme through any more pressure than she was already under.

"How did it happen?" Shizune's tone had softened and Kurenme calmed down noticeably.

"The patient's chakra plunged into overburn levels. It caused all of her vitals to flatline. Sakura had just resuscitated her with her own chakra but the huge influx caused the girl to convulse and everything fell apart from there. The girl had a doujutsu and it caused Sakura-sama to panic and break down. She was huddled in a corner, screaming."

"Doesn't sound like a regular doujutsu."

"It doesn't. And Sakura-sama didn't look like she was affected by a genjutsu or anything. So it might have been something else entirely." Kurenme ran a hand through her hair.

"Is the doujutsu still active?"

"No. Mesu had to shut it down to stop the girl from losing all of the chakra Sakura gave her." She motioned for Shizune and Amime to follow her into the operating room. Mesu was still hunched over the operating table, working intently on the girl's wounds. Shizune noticed his calm focus and the delicate precision he was working with and decided she'd talk more with Kurenme about how he'd performed during Sakura's crisis – he seemed talented and in the medical profession letting talent go to waste meant that good shinobi would die needlessly. Shizune washed her hands and donned gloves and an operating mask. She'd need to talk with Mesu and check the wounds herself before she could begin planning the layout of the medical seals.

"What did the doujutsu look like?" Shizune asked. Her mind was elsewhere, though. Even though the patient was in serious condition she figured she could handle it without Sakura's help, so long as Mesu and the others were cooperative.

"I'm not sure. Only Mesu got a good look at it."

"And he wasn't affected by it as well?"

"No, Shizune-sama."

This made things even more interesting. If it didn't affect Mesu, then it was unlikely that it was the doujutsu itself that caused Sakura's breakdown.

"Mesu. What did the doujutsu look like?" Shizune asked as she took her place at the operating table. Mesu was still working intently on the girl's stomach wound, aligning the veins and arteries and reconnecting them with small pulses of healing chakra. He paused for a second to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

"I didn't get a really good look. It was red, though. And it looked like something was wrong with her pupils. Like she had more than one." Mesu told her. Shizune stiffened, then forced herself to relax again. It wouldn't help her to go crazy right now.

"Did it look like the center pupil was dilated while another pupil was circling outside of it?" she asked, as calmly as she could. Mesu shifted and Shizune could see that under his surgical mask he was gritting his teeth in irritation. She couldn't blame him, given the delicacy of the tasks he was performing.

"Yes. Two in the eye I saw, actually. They looked like commas or something. Look, I don't know what this has to do with…"

"It has everything to do with the patient, Mesu." Shizune interrupted. There was more force in her voice than she wanted. "It will change the type of medical seal we need to use, for one. And secondly it means we need to send somebody to tell the Hokage, now."

"The Hokage?" Mesu was baffled.

"Amime. I need you to tell one of the ANBU outside to send a message to the Hokage, If he's not in his tower, tell the ANBU to go straight to his house."

"Umm…okay…" Amime said, playing with her fingers. Shizune bit back a sharp remark; Hinata used to do the same thing and it pissed her off to no end.

"Good. Tell the ANBU that he's to notify the Kage that we've just recovered an Uchiha," she said. Amime nodded. She was about to leave when Shizune stopped her again. "Also, Amime, check on Sakura. If she looks like she can work again, tell her to get in here because saving this girl is the only way she'll ever get any answers." Amime took a moment to process that information, then nodded again and sped out of the operating room. Mesu and Kurenme were staring at Shizune, wondering what was going on. "I'll fill you in on what you need to know later," Shizune told them. "For now, we just need to heal this girl."

That seemed to satisfy them and the three got back to work. Shizune pulled a small pad of paper out of her doctor's coat and began to sketch rough notes detailing the medical seal they would be using. She needed to alter it to compensate for the different chakra densities in the girl's body; her chakra would run much thicker around the eyes than a normal patient. As she planned out the seal she secretly hoped she could rely on Sakura—this was quickly proving to be more advanced than she thought it would be, and even if she drew on the skill and chakra of all three of the younger doctors with her she didn't know if she could make it work without Sakura. For better or worse, this girl was one of the most important things that had happened to Konoha in years. Shizune hoped it would be for the better.


End file.
